The Director of Elections and Information Technology (IT) for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2024 elections, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, says the NDC was fully prepared to respond decisively if the New Patriotic Party (NPP) attempted a cyber-attack on its election monitoring and collation system.
According to him, based on past experiences, the party had invested heavily in technology and human resources for the recent election, and there was no way their collation system could be hacked without a response.
“We entered this election fully prepared, and when we got to collation, you would understand how we sent a clear message to the NPP that they dare not attempt any cyber-attack. The slightest hint of a cyber-attack, and we were going to respond ruthlessly,” he said.
He added, “If we felt our system had been attacked, we would respond appropriately and disproportionately.”
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday, December 11, Dr Omane Boamah further disclosed that the NDC was not going into the polls passively, allowing the NPP to cheat them, saying, “We were not going to enter this election with our hands tied behind our backs, watching the NPP cheat us, only to come back and cry.”
He said, “The good thing was that the NPP didn’t attempt an attack on us, so we both collated our results,” leading to the NDC’s resounding victory in both the parliamentary and presidential races on Saturday.
Dr Omane Boamah explained that, unlike the 2020 elections, the NDC invested in all aspects of the electoral process this year.
In the previous election, the NDC alleged that the NPP had hacked their system and rigged the votes, which resulted in their victory. Regarding human resources to protect the votes, he mentioned that 153,000 individuals were trained on how to protect the ballot papers and pink sheets.
In terms of IT-related resources, the party distributed laptop computers to shortlisted trainees who served as polling station agents. Dr Omane Boamah believes these investments helped secure their victory, free from any attacks on their system by the outgoing NPP government.
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